How to Find Dedicated Software Development Teams for Startups
Building a brand-new product from the ground up is one of the most exciting opportunities there is in software development. However, it's not a challenge to be taken lightly. Even the most out-of-this-world brilliant and revolutionary new idea will need the right team of developers, the right technologies, and the right mindset to turn it into code.
Software development for a startup company can be a uniquely challenging task. Practical experiences in developing new ideas in the cybersecurity industry and helping a health tech professionals scale to serve more users have taught us a lot about operating as a tech-based startup within multiple industries. These projects, and others similar to them, have been some of the most stand-out informative and productive insights we've had in our history of creating software products.
Here, we share the practical experience we've built up over many years and dozens of projects working closely with startup teams. In this article, we'll share some of the pitfalls that make software development for startups uniquely challenging and look at how you can find, identify, and hire a development team with key tips and tricks to build toward success.
Here, we share the practical experience we've built up over many years and dozens of projects working closely with startup teams. In this article, we'll share some of the pitfalls that make software development for startups uniquely challenging and look at how you can find, identify, and hire a development team with key tips and tricks to build toward success.
Challenges of Finding Software Developers For a Startup
One of the key things a startup needs is a clear picture of what's coming up next when it comes to developing both the product and company. Yet, gaining this insight isn't as easy as it sounds.
By their very nature startup firms don't have a wealth of experience or time in the industry that other firms have to draw on. Gaining an accurate picture of the marketplace for technical staff, suppliers, and customers relies on creating connections and relationships that take domain knowledge and time to build up.
One of the key things a startup needs is a clear picture of what's coming up next when it comes to developing both the product and company.
Some of the key challenges to look out for as a technology-based startup should include:
There’s a Highly Competitive Marketplace for Developers
The current marketplace for technical staff is one of the most challenging we've seen for a very long time. Even the largest firms are having an exceptionally tough time recruiting to fill their internal teams. For startup firms, this competitive environment is made all the tougher with a comparatively limited reach and little familiarity or recognition amongst software engineers.
Each Role Involves wearing Many Hats
The biggest challenges of startup development come from the combination of fast-paced progress, changing requirements, and comparatively small teams. This one-two combination often results in staff expanding into more widely skilled roles that extend outside their core responsibilities. For developers, this often means leaning on additional skills in areas such as requirements gathering, testing, and continuous integration to deliver what a project needs. Practically speaking, this means startup firms typically need staff with senior developer skill sets.
Keeping on Top of Project Communication
Communication is one of the biggest challenges of technical projects at scale. Keeping everyone up to date across multiple teams and departments is an evergreen task that is tough to keep up with. The tight constraints of startups often mean project managers are often doubling their duties as developers or DevOps staff instead of leaning on dedicated engineers. These constraints make tracking tasks and progress all the more precarious still.
Lacking Institutional knowledge
Many of the most pressing challenges of developing a startup company can be attributed to a lack of practical experience working within the domain. Established firms with a long-running history have an advantage in the relationships, knowledge, and connections they've built up over time.
A startup firm is unlikely to have had a chance to engage a software development team to build its specific product before. This means starting from step one to do the leg work and research to engage the right team.
To tackle these challenges head-on, the first thing you should prioritize is being clear about the kind of development team you want to hire. Answering a handful of questions internally can help to identify a good fit and allow a prospective development team to be clear about what they can offer to you. Some of these questions should include:
- What technologies, language, and tools do you need to build your product? What do you have in-house experience with today? What do you plan to expand into in the future?
- What does your product's average use case look like? How might it scale in users and features over time?
- What technology hurdles are standing in the way of growth? What solutions do you need to enable expansion?
- Should you seek out a team of generalists with a broad skill-set, or specialists with in-depth knowledge of specific technologies?
- How will your dedicated team fit in with the working practices, timeline, and expectations of your existing team?
While you don't need to have answers to all these questions early in the process, they can help you to sketch out the profile of a team that can build your next big product. These are ideal starter questions to take to prospective developers to kick off a productive discussion and gain a more in-depth understanding of their working processes.
Benefits of Hiring Dedicated Development Teams
Hiring software development teams as a startup company can be an ideal way to import vast amounts of skill, experience, and expertise to accelerate growth and compete at a high level. Some of the key benefits include:
Maximising Return on Investment
The ability of dedicated teams to scale up rapidly and efficiently to meet project demands and then scale down again just as quickly during the closing stages is a key advantage of dedicated software teams for startups. Building products this way allows companies to eliminate time waste and ensure every minute of development and production time is bringing significant added value.
Access to Additional Knowledge and Experience
With years of experience on dozens of similar projects, startup companies benefit richly from a software team's ability to recognize and solve problems they've encountered in the past. In addition to tackling issues before they arise and speeding up development progress, this enables engineers to build solutions that are more secure, more robust, and of a higher quality than could be achieved simply by learning on the job.
Adding Built-in Management and Expertise
A dedicated software development team doesn't mean just a team of developers in isolation. Project managers, architects, and specialists are a key part of a software development package that makes these teams highly productive. With working practices and effective communication already in place, a dedicated team of software developers for startup companies can be an ideal ready-made solution to the challenges and pitfalls inherent to the industry.
The Importance of Product-Centric Software Development for Startups
For many startup firms, the ability of developers to see the project as a product can be at least as important as their technical knowledge.
A startup is very rarely founded without a deep passion and conviction for the product at the heart of the company. While enthusiasm is an excellent project driver, it doesn't always align with the technologies and tools necessary to build the product.
A software team suited to your startup will be capable of marrying your vision for the project with the technologies available to provide it. In practical terms, this means pointing out potential pitfalls and traps, suggesting better ways of reaching a goal, and highlighting optimizations that can improve the product for its users.
Ultimately, a dedicated software development team should be capable of teaching you things about your own project and design that you wouldn't have got to do so readily on your own.
How to Find The Perfect Fit Development Team for Your Startup Company
With a profile of the kind of development team you would like to bring into your firm, the next challenge is in finding the team that will write the code to realize your goals.
Case studies are one key asset you can use to evaluate development teams based on products they've created in the past and the technologies they've used to build them. These are invariably the best insights you can get into the expertise, knowledge, and working practices a team has to offer.
Second to that, reviews from past clients can provide a helpful outside perspective on what a team can bring to the table. Sites such as Clutch are a great tool you can use to research prospective teams — enabling you to do the background work necessary to find a team that creates the right fit for your requirements.
Four key things to look for in the right software team should be:
- Experience working in a similar domain or related application.
- Experience with the same technologies, languages, and tools you plan to deploy.
- Knowledge of the unique challenges and issues facing tech startups today.
- Success in previous projects with similar challenges and characteristics you expect to face in the near future.
Measuring Success
At the beginning of a project, measuring success at the end might sound trivially easy. A fully-deployed product meeting its stated goals should indicate project success. However, simply crossing the finishing line is far from the only measure of successful software development.
A dedicated software development team should add a significant contribution to the institutional knowledge and domain experience of your startup. Professional relationships and connections built during ongoing development should add something to your firm that makes future endeavors that bit easier.
You should be able to look back and see the significant added value brought to the project at every milestone along the way.
Deploying the right team for the right project should reduce the overwhelming challenges of navigating the industry. The good news is, we can help do just that with an abundance of experience across multiple industries in many startups and highly established technology firms.
